


Tuna Casserole

by Thanfiction



Series: Team Free Will Recipe Ficlets [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Recipes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-02
Updated: 2013-05-02
Packaged: 2017-12-10 04:53:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/782000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thanfiction/pseuds/Thanfiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part of a series of five ficlets where the prompt was to incorporate a relevant recipe in a character glimpse or study.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tuna Casserole

He’d never been in a real kitchen before.  Not a kitchenette, not a hot plate, not a microwave.  Well, ok, he’d been in plenty, and he knew he could find her knives, her cast iron frying pan, and her salt in under ten seconds easy.  But to cook?  

Goddamn it, he was an idiot.  Not the way Bobby said it either; the real brain-damaged deal.  Phone rings, Lisa says she’ll be late because someone twisted an ankle at yoga class and there’s paperwork, and would he make dinner.  And here’s the point where he should have said I’ll order a pizza or I’ll grab us some burgers or Chinese, but what had come out of his mouth between the guilt of no job yet and the guilt of how kind she didn’t have to be to him was “sure.”  

Right.  He could do this.  She had to have some cookbooks or something lying around, right?  Of course.  There, in fact, right next to the butcher’s block, three of them in a row with the bookend that looked like a fat little Italian dude with a timer in his belly.  

The Joy of Cooking.  Thick. Scary.  Looked like a Bible or a research book.  Flip it open.  Oh hell no.  The Yoga Cookbook: Vegetarian food for body and mind.  Mother of Colt NO.  30 Minute Meals with Rachel Ray.  Better.  Stepford-grinning bitch on the cover looked like she was about to flick her eyes black at him, but a man’s gotta do and all that.  

Very much not thirty minutes later, the kitchen was a disaster and he was across the street batting the big green ones at the little old lady who was always watering things and trying to stare through the walls. She took pity on him and he couldn’t have cared less that she was staring at his ass or what she said about the mess when she came over and walked him through it.  

Tuna casserole. Simple.  Easy.  Bag of frozen veggies.  Can of cream of mushroom soup.  Two cans of tuna.  Boil a box of macaroni and cheese.  Add the sauce packet too, that’s her little secret.  Saltine crackers and a handful of shredded cheddar on top, and it all goes in the oven at 350 until it’s brown and bubbly and Lisa’s getting home and he’s had time to clean up the kitchen like it’s a crime scene.  

She laughs when Ben tattles about the neighbor, and he smiles with one side of his face and says hey, I’m a hunter, not a chef, and you’ve gotta admit, it’s not bad. And it isn’t, but he still feels like he failed somehow, and he won’t meet her eyes.  

But then there’s her hand on his knee under the table, just a little squeeze that confuses him a moment because it’s not a promise of later, and he looks up by accident to see her staring back too strong to look away again.  ”I know, Dean.  But you’re learning.  I’m proud of you.  You can do this.”  

And there’s no answer for that, because the bite of casserole seems to swell in his mouth and there are so many things that choke and throb and cave in on themselves like a field of dead grass opening on a sulfer reek.  His shoulders are iron and refuse to shrug more than a fraction as he grabs a second beer, popping the cap on the edge of the table with a noise that’s supposed to mean something it doesn’t.  

So he swallows deep, chasing the casserole with the bitter hops and the bite of carbonation, and now he can find his voice enough.  ”Thanks.  But dessert’s Oreos and ice cream and you’re just gonna deal, ok?”

She laughs and Ben cheers and it’s a vigorous OK!  That isn’t.  Not at all.        


End file.
